Subj:	Zaynab al-Ghazali

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     Zaynab al-Ghazali is a woman of another kind.  Like Aisha Abd
al-Rahman, she is Egyptian and defends the rights of Muslim women
in accordance with what she perceives to be the correct Islamic
doctrine, and like her she is the daughter of an Azhar-educated
father.  But she has been an organizer of women and an Islamic
activist, rather than an Islamic scholar.  Early in her youth, she
was an active member of the Egyptian Feminist Union, founded by
Huda al-Sha`rawi in 1923.  She resigned her membership in
disagreement with the ideas and ideals of the women's liberation
movement and, at the age of eighteen in 1936, she founded the
Muslim Women's Association in order to organize women's activities
according to Islamic norms and for Islamic purposes.
     The Society of the Muslims Brothers, founded by Hasan al-Banna
in 1928, was thinking of creating a division of the Muslim Sisters
at the time, and Hasan al-Banna asked Zaynab al-Ghazali to head
that division and incorporate into it her new Muslim Women's
Association.  She and her association's general assembly rejected
the offer, but promised cooperation.  After the Society of the
Muslim Brothers was dissolved in 1948, she gave personal pledge of
allegiance to Hasan al-Banna in 1949 to support him and back his
efforts to establish an Islamic state.  Though he was assassinated
soon afterwards, she continued her personal allegiance to his
successors in the society and helped their members, particularly
after they went underground during Abd al-Nasir's regime in the
1950s and 1960s.
     In an interview at home in Heliopolis, Egypt in 1981 Zaynab
al-Ghazali said:

     Islam has provided everything for both men and women.  It gave
     women everything--freedom, economic rights, political rights,
     social rights, public and private rights.  Islam gave women
     rights in the family granted by no other society.  Women may
     talk of liberation in Christian society, Jewish society, or
     pagan society, but in Islamic society it is a grave error to
     speak of the liberation of women.  The Muslim woman must study
     Islam so she will know that it is Islam that has given her all
     her rights.

     This is the core of Zaynab al-Ghazali's thought regarding the
status of women as expressed in her public lectures and her
articles in al-Da`wa magazine, for which she was editor of a
section devoted to the ideals of a good Muslim home.  The thrust of
her activism and that of her association is an educational one:  to
instill the doctrines of Islam in women's minds, teach them about
their rights and duties and call her change in society leading to
the establishment of an Islamic state which rules by the Quran and
the Sunna of the Prophet.
     Zaynab al-Ghazali believes that Islam permits women to take an
active part in public life, to hold jobs, enter politics and
express their opinion.  She believes Islam permits them to own
property, do business and be anything they wish to be in the
service on an Islamic society.  Yet she believes that a Muslim
woman's first duty is to be a mother and a wife, and that no other
activity should interfere with this role of hers, for this should
have priority over everything else.  If she has free time to
participate in public life after her first duty is fulfilled, she
may do so because Islam does not forbid her.
     Zaynab al-Ghazali strongly believes in the religious and
social duty of being married.  In her first marriage, her husband
did not agree with her Islamic activism and so she got a divorce in
accordance with a marriage precondition.  Her second husband was
more understanding and undertook in writing to assist her and never
to prevent her from fulfilling her mission in the service of the
Islamic cause.  In her autobiographical book, Ayyam min Hayati, she
tells how, though worried about her, her husband continued to
support her in her activities; she emphasizes, however, that she
never neglected him or her family duties, even as she continued to
be president of the Muslim Women's Association, to work long hours
at its headquarters and to be personally involved in the
clandestine activities of the Society of the Muslim Brothers.
After her second husband's death, she felt that she had done her
duty in marriage and was free to devote all her time to the cause
of Islam.
     Like many Muslim activists disenchanted with the 1952 Egyptian
revolution which many of them supported at the beginning, Zaynab
al-Ghazali considered Abd al-Nasir and his regime to be enemies of
Islam.  After some members of the Society of the Muslim Brothers
were sentenced to death and many others imprisoned, she started
programs to take care of their orphans and widows, to cater to the
needy and unemployed among those released or at large, to help
their families and in general to sue her position as president of
the Muslim Women's Association to do social work that was greatly
needed.  She also intensified her educational activities and
participated in secret Islamic study groups guided by the
leadership of the Muslims Brothers in prison.  By 1962, she had
established contact with Sayyid Qutb in prison through his two
sisters and received his approval of an Islamic course of readings
in commentaries on the Quran and the Hadith as well as in Islamic
jurisprudence.  She also received from him sections of a book he
was writing in prison, later to be published under the title
Ma`alim fil Tariq.
     Pages from this book and instructions from Sayyid Qutb in
prison, along with the set verses from the Quran, would be studied
by groups of five to ten young men meeting at night in the home of
Zaynab al-Ghazali or elsewhere.  Discussions followed and views
were established and opinions formed.  With the agreement of Sayyid
Qutb and the Muslim Brother's leadership, it was decided that this
Islamic training program should continue for thirteen years, which
is the duration of Prophet Muhammad's call in Mecca before he moved
to Medina and established the Islamic state.  It was also decided
that at the end of this period, a survey would be conducted in
Egypt to find whether at least 75 percent of Egyptian men and women
were convinced on the necessity of establishing an Islamic state.
If so, they would call for one; if not, they would continue their
study and learning for another thirteen years--this to be repeated
again and again until the nation was ready to accept Islamic rule,
implementing Islamic law in accordance with the Quran and the Sunna
of the Prophet.
     When the Egyptian government became suspicious and these
secret groups looked to it like seditious political cells, a
crackdown on Muslim Brothers took place in 1965.  Muslim Sisters
were not spared, the Muslim Women's Association was dissolved, and
Zaynab al-Ghazali among others, was imprisoned.  She was brought to
trial with several others in 1966 and sentenced to hard labor for
life, but she was released in 1971.  In the open Islamic resurgence
in Egypt which became stronger after the death of Abd al-Nasir in
1970 and since Sadat replaced him as Egyptian president, she was
continued to be an active speaker and teacher of Islam, calling for
the establishment of an Islamic state as the ideal toward which all
Muslims should strive in order to have a society which is divinely
guided by the Quran and the Sunna of Prophet Muhammad.
     Zaynab al-Ghazali's ideas regarded the would-be Islamic state
are very general and lack specificity on many points.  Her believe
in it, however, is no weaker for that reason.  She believes there
is no Islamic state on earth at present, i.e., one totally bound by
the Shari`a and implementing it fully; not even Pakistan or Saudi
Arabia qualifies to be called an Islamic state in her view.  She
supports the Iranian revolution and hopes its regime will soon
become settled so tat it can devote its efforts to solving its
internal and external problems.  The penal code of the Islamic
Shari`a should not be applied now, but it should rather be
postponed until an Islamic state is established and the Shari`a can
be fully implemented.  Allegiance should be given to an Islamic
ruler by general election or by the group traditionally knows as
ahl al-Hall wal `aqd who are honest, wise, experiences and
righteous people who, according to her, could be chosen, appointed
or elected, no specific system being involved.  She believes Islam
forbids that the headship of the Islamic state be a hereditary
position.  One who is head may be called a caliph or a president,
and it is conceivable that there could be two caliphs at one time
because of the expanse of the Islamic world; but the two should be
united and their two armies should fight for the same cause.  A
caliph should have a council of advisers who are experts in various
fields so that he can remain trustworthy and acceptable to the
people who elected him.  According to her, Islam does not accept a
multi-party system because it has its own self-contained system,
the Muslim people having the right in it to chose their ruler and
the duty to obey him so long as he adheres to the true path of
Islam.  Other systems or regimes are man-made and inferior to
Islam's, which is made by God.  Non-Muslim believers will be
treated by the Islamic state in accordance with the prescriptions
of the Quran and the Sunna, and non-believers likewise.  Zaynab al-
Ghazali believes the Islamic system will bring justice to everyone,
but Muslims must first be united.  There can be differences of
opinion among Muslims on issues over which their ranks will not be
divided:  they may differ on means but not on ends, where the goal
should always remain unity.